Generations
by TriplePirouette
Summary: Logan never asked to live forever, especially when longevity leads to loss. Logan POV WR Tissue warning! Edited to fix spelling error!


Title: Generations

By: TriplePirouette

Category: um, angst. Yeah. Tissue warning right now.

Disclaimer: They're not mine- I'm a poor and having fun... take pity...

Distribution: my site, WRFA, anywhere else please ask first :)

Summary: Logan never asked to live forever, especially when longevity leads to loss. Logan POV

Author's notes: Not really sure where this came from. It kinda blind sided me. I'm really fond of baby-fic, I guess I just started thinking what-if... yeah, I'm really not this morbid. Serious tissue warning. Go get some, I'll wait. Technically there is character death, though it's not really explicit, only mentioned. I'm vague on purpose, so don't ask for more, I don't intend on revisiting this.

Feedback PLEASE at: I love anything constructive! Blatant flames, however, will be disregarded and used to roast s'mores...

"Daddy?"

It's just a whisper, but it wakes me up as sure as any scream would. She hasn't called me Daddy in years. Dad, Pops, and Old Man more recently, but not Daddy.

"I'm here, baby, I'm here." I get up out of the chair and move to her bedside, taking her hand. She's afraid, yet resigned. I feel the same. "What do you need?" I push the hair away from her eyes, the memory of me doing the same for her mother far too fresh.

A tear falls from her eyes, even as I can hear her tongue smacking in her dry mouth, trying so hard to get the words out. "I'll get some water," I whisper, walking away from her bedside and into the small attached bathroom.

I knew it would be hard, but I didn't think it would be this hard. But then again, I didn't think I'd be able to deal with Marie's death, either. As I fill up the cup in the sink, my reflection mocks me. Only a few grey hairs, maybe a couple new wrinkles. Haven't changed that much in the last seventy years, but I knew that was how it was going to be.

Jeannie's voice rings in my head, "It seems your mutation just slows down the ageing process, Logan. Apparently even you can't live forever."

I never asked to live forever.

I walk back out into the bedroom, and look at the frail form of my only daughter, her eyes still as bright and brown as they were when she was a toddler, running around the Xavier Mansion, causing havoc and keeping me and Marie busy. Her hair, so soft and brown and amazingly unruly and beautiful has been tamed by age: it's thinner now, and silvery grey, but still as soft. Hands that clutched mine as she learned to walk and as we walked around the mansion and as I walked her down the aisle at her wedding reach out for me this one last time. I can't say no.

She looks so much like her mother. Always had my fighting spirt, though.

She takes the water in a shaky hand. "Don't be sad," She whispers as she takes my hand again. Of all the damn things for a daughter of ours to be... even now she's as sharp an empath as she ever was. Touch, skin to skin, always accentuated it for her, but she got nothing from me. Sometimes I thanked God, right now, I'm cursing him. No healing factor. I'd hand mine over if I could.

And right now is the reason I'd put my foot down after Marie got pregnant. I love my baby with all my might, and I would have loved any others that might have surprised us like she did, but I knew this day would come. I asked Maire if she could have more knowing, _knowing_, that she'd have to watch them die someday, and not because of some Brotherhood raid or car accident or something untimely, but because of old age. I cried that night as I told her how afraid I was of watching her get older, and then watching our daughter get older, all the while never changing. I told her how afraid I was of them leaving me, all the while clutching Marie in my arms, rubbing the small bump in her middle that had formed in the last few months.

The memory is sharp, but it was a lifetime ago.

Marie's lifetime. She's been in the cemetery across town for the last fifteen years, three months, five weeks, and two days. It was a Mutant's death of old age: at ninety-two her skin turned on itself, draining her own life, and no longer responding to my touch.

Couldn't heal Marie. Can't heal my daughter. I knew this day would come.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, baby?"

"I'll tell Momma you miss her real bad." She closes her eyes and holds my hand close. "Love you, Daddy."

"I love you, baby."

Her last breath, and a few more quiet beats of her heart.

The claws unsheathe of their own accord. Tears fall from my eyes, and I regard the three blades on the hand not holding hers. It would be so easy to kill myself, I'm so sure of it now.

But I can't. I promised.

Claws go back in, and I untangle my hand from hers, turning to the door.

Walking out into the hall, I pull the lump in my throat back. For the second time in my life, the urge to follow someone into the peace of death is almost more than I can stand, but I promised Marie.

"Pop?" a quiet voice asks, slightly trembling. She pushes up from the couch, brushing all too familiar hair behind her ear before walking over to me. Across the room, her brother stops walking, his own son in his arms, waiting for my reaction.

I lower my eyes and clear my throat, trying to fight back the tears. Anna Marie, named for her grandmother, is in my arms in a second, my grandson close behind, his free hand falling to his sister's shoulder, even as his head lays on his sons.

"I'm sorry, Pop," he says, his eyes tearing up. Holding my grandchildren, I'm still struck by the irony that I look like their contemporary.

"We'll all miss her," I choke out, holding on for dear life to the rest of my family before we all need to move forward with the day we'd known was coming. They are the reason I'm not out the forest, ramming six blades of adamantium into my body. I promised Marie that I'd take care of her that day on the train, and a million other times for all of the years we were together. I promised her I'd take care of our baby the day she was born, and made the same promise as I held my grandchildren for the first time. I smile sadly at the three month old, my great-grandson, he's looking around nervously, picking up on the emotions we're feeling. As the kids move away to say their last goodbyes, I take the baby into my arms, cooing gently and smiling at his soft, powdery, innocent scent.

I'll take care of him, too, Marie. I'll take care of him, too.


End file.
